Max Baer's "style" dissected

When we get to the tier of fighters under Sharkey and Baer, then Schmeling is pretty reliable at taking care of business.

Between his loss to Gypsy Daniels in 1928 (when he was basically a Euro level fighter), and his win over Adolph Heuser in 1939 (his last fight before being drafted into the army), his losses and draws were:

Sharkey (robbery)

Baer (legit)

Hamas (legit)

Uzcdun (robbery)

Louis (legit)

So basically over an 11 year period you have Baer, Hamas, and Louis.

We can’t hold it too strongly against Schmeling that he lost to Louis, because that version of Louis might have beaten any heavyweight that ever lived.

Max Baer was on the same general level as Schmeling both in the era, and in terms of historical standing, so again not too bad.

The biggest mark against him is the Hamas loss, which is apparently by far his worst performance. People were saying “stick a fork in him, he’s done” after this fight, but for whatever reason he got his form back.

Another thing that is not apparent from boxrec, is that he always went for the most highly ranked contender. Risko, Uzcdun I, Stribling, Walker, and Hamas II were all at the absolute pinnacle of their standing as contenders when Schmeling met them. Walter Neusell was being hyped as the new Max Schmeling, but the old Max Schmeling had other ideas.